> CB: Without necessarily calling it a lot of highpowered stuff, I think
> one idea is that the next revolution will be better , based on
> learning from all the earlier ones down through history that you have
> mentioned. Just as in other sciences, we want a theory of history and
> revolution, of society , that develops based on our accumulation of
> experience with each other. "We" ( the human race) can do better and
> better at revolution , and after the insurrection in the ongoing new
> society, exactly because we learn from mistakes of past generations,
> etc. , a long term trial and error process, so to speak. One
> characteristic of the next rev. , the one to transform out of
> capitalism, the one to really take care of business, might be that it
> is more explicitly conscious of itself as a revolution to end all
> class exploitative society, and just in general that the masses of
> people who make it are more class and revolutionary conscious than
> previous generations , ancient generations, who made the revolutions
> and evolutions you refer to.
Interestingly, I was just now looking at a thread in the LBO archives, in which I found the following post from Carrol Cox (Apr 3, 2001):
"I've been intgermittently arguing a point against both Doug Henwood and Lou Proyect (among others) for nearly five years now: the assumption that we can learn from past _mistakes_ is profoundly wrong, since it denies history, treating social action as though 'experiments' were being carried out in a laboratory. We will never have a chance to repeat mistakes even if we wanted to. (All the counter examples that can or will be or have been produced in response to this will be trivial: i.e. the 'mistakes' identified will be _either_ mistakes that always occur anyhow and have to be lived with _or_ mistakes that can be avoided without appealing to any 'lesson from history.')
">what do you think needs to change in Lenin
> this time around, specifically on the question of guaranteeing
> freedom in collectivity?
"There can be no guarantee -- there can't even be a reasonable assurance. Attempts to achieve such assurance depend on the assumption that marxists possess a crystal ball to let us see the precise circumstances that will accompany a future struggle. They guarantee only that we will be blindsided by events."
I think he has a very good point. What, precisely, could we learn from previous revolutions? Let's do it nicer this time? Let's make sure to be more "democratic"? Set up a new system that really works, and does what we promise it will, this time?
As the Old Guy himself said: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past." So if the "next revolution" is going to be the one to "transform out of capitalism,"as you say, that would presuppose, it seems to me, that the circumstances in which it was made would be such as to allow this transformation. And if it is to "end all class exploitative society," that would also presuppose that the " transforming out of capitalism" would indeed end all class society and exploitation.
This, however, is one of the big sticking points (perhaps the biggest) I have encountered in my 40 years or so of reading Marx: I don't think he (or his epigones) have every actually completely proved, although they constantly assert, that capitalism is the sole cause of class divisions and exploitation, so that ending it would end those things. I have this teeny-weeny, sneaking little fear that, even after capitalism were completely eradicated, people would still come up with some way of exploiting each other.
And it would seem to me, at least, that if the circumstances in which the "next revolution"is going to be carried out are going to be such as to allow capitalism to be completely eradicated, the folks doing the revolution should have some fairly clear idea of the nature of the social structure that is going to replace it. I also have a tiny little fear rattling around in the back of my mind that this wonderful new society, call it "socialism" or "communism" or whatever you like, is not just going to blossom forth on its own; it's going to take some sort of conscious work to construct. But orthodox Marxists seem very reluctant to describe it in any clear way (that would be "utopian," of course).
Perhaps the increased "class and revolutionary consciousness" you mentioned will take care of all this, and perhaps social science has some role to play in all of it, too. But, slow learner as I am, I just haven't been able to figure these puzzles out in these 40 years. This is all old, boring stuff, of course. Probably I should go back and browse in the LBO archives some more; I'm sure, somewhere there, someone has explained it all in terms even I can grasp. :-)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Belinda: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil. Lady Brute: That may be a mistake in the translation.
-- Sir John Vanbrugh: The Provok’d Wife (1697), I.i.